: by years and experience: and thus we are nursing up a spirit of petulance and mutiny, which can never fail to render the labour of cultivation very disagreeable to the teacher. Some parents, who, through a natural partiality, are willing to have it thought that their children are prodigies of forwardness and acuteness, consult their opinions, and argue with them, under a persuasion that their own reason will direct them, before they know the difference between good and evil. To argue with a child, who is to do as he is bid, is to take him out of his sphere, and to put him upon a level with his father. In some cases, where there is an unaspiring quiet temper, this may possibly succeed: but with a mercurial disposition, the experiment is always dangerous for what is the issue? He is reasoned with: he reasons again, and, perhaps, though he has the wrong side of the question, he may possibly have the better of the argument in the hearing of others; while the father, who is in the right, and ought in duty to persist, is silenced, and gives up the point, partly from vanity, and partly from affection. What can follow, but that the authority of the father will fall by degrees into contempt ? and what he loses in authority, the child will gain in conceit and impertinence, till he will do nothing without a reason, and seldom with; for he thinks his own reasons better. As he grows up, he carries his impertinence with him into company, whom he interrupts, by giving his judgment on all occasions, and upon subjects, of which he has only so much knowledge as qualifies him to be troublesome. The case is very unhappy, if we consider it so far only as his conversation is concerned; because wiser people will find themselves disgusted with his company, and avoid it. But when this untutored confidence is extended to moral action, the consequences, which were disagreeable enough before, now become dreadful: and I fear it has been but too justly remarked, that the loose system of edu. cation adopted by some mistaken parents, on the recommendation of some enthusiastic philosophers, has produced a new generation of libertines, some of whom are such monsters of ignorance, insolence, and boundless profligacy, as never existed before in a Christian country. How far this observation may be applicable to the softer sex, it is not my business to inquire. Parents live to see the consequences of their mistake, when they can only lament the op. portunity they have lost. Besides, the method is radically absurd and unnatural in itself; it is contrary to that rational order which does and must prevail in all other cases of the kind. The raw recruit learns his exercise, on the authority of his officer, because he knows nothing as yet of the art of war, and he waits for the reasons of it till he comes into action. The patient commits himself to the physician, consenting to a regimen which is against his appetites, and taking medicines, of which he knows neither the names nor the qualities; and while nature is ready to rebel at the taste of them. The Lacedemonians carried this doctrine to such excess, that they obliged their Ephori to submit to the ridiculous ceremony of being shaved when they entered upon their office, for no other end, but that it might be signified by this act, that they knew how to practise submission to the laws of their country. In short, it is an established and universal law, that he who will gain any thing, must give up something; he that will improve his understanding, his manners, or his health, must contradict his will. This may be hard; but it is much harder to offer up wisdom, happiness, and perhaps even life itself, as a sacrifice to folly. So that after all the high flights and fancies of philosophic fanaticism, you may rest satisfied, there is no rule of education that has common sense in it, but the old-fashioned and almost exploded doctrine of authority on one side, and dependence on the other. He that will have liberty without discretion, will lose more than he gains: he will escape from the authority of others, to be devoted to his own ignorance, and enslaved by his own passions, which are the worst tyrants upon earth. A gentleman appointed to a government abroad, consulted an eminent person, who was at that time the oracle of the law, as to the rule of his future conduct in his office, and begged his instructions. "I take you," said he, " for a man of inte grity; and, therefore, the advice I must give you in general, is, to act in all cases according to the best of your judgment: however, I have this one rule to recommend; never give your reasons: you will gain no ground that way, and perhaps bring yourself into great difficulties by attempting it. Let your reasons be those of an honest man, and such as you can answer; but never expose them to your infe riors, who will be sure to have their reasons against yours; and while reason is litigated, au thority is lost, and the public interest suffers." I mention the advice of this famous politician, to show you that the wisest of men, and the undoubted friends of political liberty, are obliged in practice to adopt the principle which I have been explaining to you so that when children resign themselves to the direction of their parents and tutors, who are bound by affection and interest to promote their happiness, and will take pleasure in showing them the reason of things at a proper season, they do but follow the example of all communities of men in the world, who are passive for their own good; who are under laws, which not one in five hundred of them understands; and submit to actions, of which they are not able to see either the propriety or the equity; and if children are treated as men are, no indignity is offered, and they have nothing to complain of. Your own sense will assure you, upon the whole, that society cannot subsist, nor any business go forward, without subordination; and the experience of all ages will teach you, when you come to be better acquainted with it, that the dissolution of authority is the dissolution of society. In the mean time, consider the wisdom and happiness which is found among a swarm of bees; a pattern to all human societies. There is perfect allegiance, perfect subordination: no time is lost in disputing or questioning; but business goes forward with cheerfulness at every opportunity, and the great object is the common interest. All are armed for defence, and ready for work; so that in every member of the community the two characters of the soldier and the labourer are united. If you look to the fruit of this wise economy, you find a store of honey for them to feed upon when the summer is past, and the days of labour are finished, Such, I hope, will be the fruit of your studies. II. ON GOOD MANNERS. PROPRIETY of behaviour in company is necessary to every gentleman; for, without good manners, he can neither be acceptable to his friends, nor agree able in conversation to strangers. The three sources of ill manners are pride, ill nature, and want of sense; so that every person who is already endowed with humility, good nature, and good sense, will learn good manners with little or no teaching. A writer, who had great knowledge of mankind, has defined good manners as the art of making those people easy with whom we converse; and his definition cannot be mended. The ill qualities abovementioned, all tend naturally to make people uneasy. Pride assumes all the conversation to itself, and makes the company insignificant. Ill nature makes offensive reflections; and folly makes no di. stinction of persons and occasions. Good manners are therefore in part negative: let but a sensible person refrain from pride and ill nature, and his conversation will give satisfaction. So far as good manners are positive, and related to good breeding, there are many established forms, which are to be learned by experience and conversation in the world. But there is one plain rule, worth all the rest added together; that a person who pretends to the character and behaviour of a gentleman, should do every thing with gentleness; with an easy, quiet, friendly manner, which doubles |